


as a sword and shield, a bow and arrow (a robotic space lion?!-)

by DarkColdSummer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 01, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Attempt at Humor, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Adoptive Siblings, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Pre-Canon, Prophecy, Sunmer's brand of 0 emotional impact endings, author does not know what genre it is, author is a mess, i gradually make less and less sense over the course of the story, yes now meet me, you know all those "[character] is a mess" tags?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26317000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkColdSummer/pseuds/DarkColdSummer
Summary: Takashi Shirogane is more than just the pilot of the Kerberos Mission (which is actually a pretty big thing to be more than). Hunk Garret is more than just an engineer. Lance McClain is more than just a cargo pilot.There are specific reasons why Shiro is Lance’s hero. Being the Kerberos Mission’s pilot? That’s only one out of the many.(aka, i really like fusing au settings with vld’s setting. so, what if (some of) our paladins were demigods and/or legacies?)
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Lance & Lance's Family (Voltron), Lance & Luis & Marco & Rachel & Veronica (Voltron)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	as a sword and shield, a bow and arrow (a robotic space lion?!-)

“Lance?” Rachel calls, impatience in her tone.

“Yes?” He grins, twelve years old and feeling ready to take on anything, backpack swung over one of his shoulders. If Camp Jupiter is a nightmare for Lance’s inbred Greek genes, Camp Half-Blood is a dream - is paradise.

“Are you ready yet?” It’s Marco this time.

“He won’t be for a while more,” Veronica teases. “We allknow he takes forever and three hours.”

Eager to prove his siblings wrong, Lance skids down the staircase of their house in New Athens, grinning up at his older sisters and brother. “I’m here!”

Over the years, New Rome and New Athens have grown to be near combined, though Camp Jupiter remains as the military school and Camp Half-Blood remains a summer camp. Has Lance mentioned how much he’s been looking forward to Camp Half-Blood yet? Because he’s only attended Camp Jupiter for a year, and he’s ready to quit. If he were allowed to without having another school to go to, at least.

Of his whole family tree, his generation is pretty unique, like some recessive genes are finally coming into play, especially considering that all his family has had for generations is an affinity for archery on his father’s side and some vague sense of persuasiveness on his mother’s side. Luis has, not just a simple affinity for archery and other long-ranged weapons, but is, rather, a perfect shot, with an unusual amount of prophetic dreams. Marco has the Hermes affinity for being a jack of all trades, as well as sleight of hands. Rachel has Aphrodite’s natural, effortless beauty, attracting a gaggle of admirers wherever she goes, though she can get rid of them with some effort, thanks to her abilities in manipulating emotions. Veronica, who dropped out of Camp Jupiter for another military school called the Galaxy Garrison, has Apollo’s ability to manipulate lights (however small) and Aphrodite’s ability to instinctually read emotions.

Out of all his siblings, Lance is supposedly the most powerful, even though he technically has the least number of powers. His sole power is not very much, especially not anything next to the likes of the children of the Big Three, or even just children of minor gods. For an eighth generation legacy of Aphrodite and Hermes, and a fifth generation legacy of Apollo, what relatively little control and impact he has over his extremely specific musical version of charmspeak is supposedly incredible. (He needs to convey it at least slightly musically, ensure that the target is at least slightly attracted to him, and ensure that his words alone would be persuasive. It’s generally far more trouble than it’s worth.)

“It’s like a siren’s call,” Hunk had told him once, which actually makes it sound a lot cooler and more dangerous and more effortless than it actually is. Lance appreciates the effort, though.

Hunk - a son of Vulcan and fourth generation legacy of Athena - is the only person that Lance likes so far, within Camp Jupiter. As the child of a Roman god, he is obligated to attend Camp Jupiter. As a legacy of a Greek goddess…? Lance entertains many complaints from his best friend over the strict rules of the military school.

Also as a legacy of a Greek goddess, Hunk is also eager, albeit less so than Lance, to attend Camp Half-Blood.

“Are we there yet?” Lance complains, not for the first time.

All three of his siblings shoot him frustrated glares in return. “Almost,” Marco tells him. “You know, the same answer as the past three times you asked or so.”

Lance pouts.

-

“Who is _he_?” Lance asks, voice low with admiration. The demigod (or legacy, but the power radiating from them makes him inclined to believe that they’re a demigod) has dark hair and dark blue eyes, and an enthusiastic personality, if the way he’s gesturing rapidly to his companion means anything.

“Hm?” Veronica looks up, at the figure Lance is gesturing at. “Oh, that’s Shiro. He’s a son of Jupiter.”

“You mean he’s the guy who was on his way to being praetor before he dropped out of Camp Jupiter?” Lance presses.

“Yeah,” Veronica answers absentmindedly. “He’s top in his class at the Garrison. Graduating batch.”

“Woah,” Lance says.

-

It turns out, in Camp Half-Blood, almost everyone has stories to tell about Takashi Shirogane, things they admire about him.

Cabin Ten swoons over his looks. Cabin Five admires his hand-to-hand fighting skills. Cabin Seven wishes he never touches a ranged weapon again. There are more; but everything is singing praises, showering flowers on his reputation.

Shiro seems cool, that much Lance can admit, but he doesn’t make any further decisions on his opinion on him until he sees Shiro hi-five a Hermes kid, Cabin Six yelling about something in the distance, clearly having been a victim of a prank orchestrated by the two, if not more.

It’s settled; that guy? He is his _hero_.

-

Lance? He thinks maybe, just maybe, Camp Half-Blood was overhyped. At the very least, combat lessons are a bust.

He’d thought that maybe, even if none of the weapons he was taught to use at Camp Jupiter worked, he’d be able to find something more suited to him - maybe the weapons in Camp Jupiter are too Roman. But it turns out, even Greek weapons don’t quite work.

The closest weapon he has felt comfortable using is a bow and arrow. He’s good at it, but it doesn’t _quite_ feel right. Everyone else tells him that he’s being an idiot. What other weapon would a legacy of Apollo use? It’s to be expected.

He despises the bow and arrow.

Still, he takes up a practice set of bow and arrows, and wonders if he can commission Hunk to make him his own set. Maybe that’ll solve the discomfort coursing through him whenever he uses them.

Everyone else is right, of course. What else would a legacy of Apollo use?

-

Apparently, he’s too loud. Too enthusiastic. Too _much_ , for most people at either Camp. Hunk remains as his only friend, even when he’s thirteen, at least until their aspirations don’t seem to match up.

“What do you mean you want to leave Camp Jupiter?” Lance pleads. “Don’t leave me alone with everyone else! Who else is going to be my friend?”

“I mean,” Hunk contemplates. “I want to go to the Galaxy Garrison, you can try coming with me?”

Lance takes that to heart.

-

“I want to go to the Garrison,” Lance tells Veronica. “I want to see the stars close-up.”

“Okay,” she tells him. “Good luck.”

-

He and Hunk get into the Garrison together.

It brings him a wonderful sense of relief - at least he has someone in his corner.

-

The Garrison isn’t much different from Camp Jupiter, he finds. There’s that same, absolutely ridiculous, military formation that he simply can’t stand.

Hunk looks at him like he’s grown another head when he tells his best friend that. “The Garrison _is_ a military academy, Lance, just like Camp Jupiter. Why else did you expect it to be different?”

Got him there. Lance shrugs. He doesn't know why he thought it'd be different either. Veronica told him so, after all, that there isn’t really much of a culture change, just a shift in focuses. It’s his own personal expectations that just turn out to be quite incorrect. "A guy can hope, can't he?" He says, instead.

Hunk laughs, so he laughs too.

-

Turns out, Takashi Shirogane is still a hero-figure in the Garrison, just like back at the Camps. Only this time, it's because of his incredible flight abilities, not his heroic quests or how friendly he is.

Another thing about Garrison-Shiro that's different from Camp-Shiro is that he has a brother. An adopted brother, nonetheless, but a brother - unlikely to be by blood. If it'd been the case, everyone back at Camp would've known. No matter how much they look alike, it seems pretty unlikely that Keith Kogane shares a parent with Takashi Shirogane.

Keith is another figure for discussion in itself, with flight abilities that rival that of Shiro's. Lance can't help but wonder if they'd actually shared a godly parent - shared Zeus's or Jupiter's godly ichor in their veins. It's actually pretty unlikely, but it would have been amusing, if Keith shared a godly parent with Shiro. Maybe a legacy, Lance concedes. Hunk agrees.

-

The Garrison gives him something that neither Camp has been able to in his four years with them - a suitable weapon. The gun is in his hands and he’s a natural with it - must be the Apollo genetics in him - even more so than with his bow and arrow. It’s comfortable and it suits him.

The bullet shoots clean through the target dummies, and the feeling left behind is exhilarating - Lance could do this forever.

He also knows that he’ll probably owe Hunk multiple favours now. Look, Hunk’s gift to him is beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, etcetera, and completely worth any amount of favours. It’s beyond any expectation Lance could’ve had when he asked Hunk for a gun he could use on monsters. It’s a gun made from scrap metals that Hunk’s found around the Garrison, but its bullets are all Celestial Bronze, enchanted by a child of Hecate to never run out of them. It’s perfect, and he really looks forward to using it against monsters.

Speaking of monsters, the Garrison has a surprising lack of them, considering Shiro, Hunk, Veronica and Lance himself, alongside any other demigods or legacies amongst the Garrison cohorts. There’s something strange about that - something Lance is quite curious to know the answer to, but isn’t quite sure he’ll enjoy it, especially when he asks Veronica and all he gets is a tight smile.

Veronica doesn’t hide things from him.

She doesn’t.

Right?

-

He goes back to Camp Half-Blood, wielding his gun with a grin on his face. Rachel is the only other McClain left to attend it, but enough people are impressed by his shiny new gun. When asked about the origin, he grins and directs them to Hunk. At least, until Hunk tells him that he’s overwhelmed by the commissions. Then he just praises Hunk without ever dropping his name, until the person he’s talking to is completely and entirely confused, and his own fingers are tired from snapping a simple rhythm to channel his charmspeak.

If nothing else, it’s good practice.

-

At dinner one day, the Oracle of Delphi delivers a prophecy - not just any prophecy, but the next Great Prophecy. Lance doesn’t hear it, naturally, because it turns out he has a tendency for missing important things like that.

Hunk tells him of it in whispers, eyes alight with what can only be fear, like it impacts Hunk himself directly. It’s apparently really long for a prophecy, more reminiscent of a verse of the tales of the Odyssey and other epics.

The knowledge of the prophecy tugs at Lance’s very being when he hears of it, not that he tells anyone. Why would an extremely distant legacy be part of the biggest prophecy of the century? What right does he have to ask for the prophecy if he missed it in the first place?

-

The prophecy is written out and discussed amongst the cabin counsellors, shared amongst Cabin Seven for particular discussion. Lance knows Luis is invited back to Camp to analyse the prophecy as well, sees him around for a while.

Luis’s prophetic skills terrify both of himself and Lance, Lance can tell. The grip on his shoulder is tight and trembling, and Luis’s faintly glowing eyes are glossy with tears.

“You’ll do what you have to,” his brother tells him, voice shaking. Luis takes a deep breath and lets his lips twitch upwards into a faint smile. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine.”

Lance doesn’t have it in him to react properly. It’s not too often that Luis’s powers take over him so completely and thoroughly - and it only happens before something big occurs. If Luis is giving him a warning, he’ll probably have to take it to heart.

He lifts his hand and places it gently over his brother’s, weakly grinning up at him. “I’ll be fine,” he drawls playfully, even if his words are a promise. “You worry too much sometimes.”

Luis doesn’t laugh, even if the dangerously sharp glow in his eyes is fading. His tone and words are serious, especially next to Lance’s. Lance finds himself fixed under a knowing stare. “Sometimes I think I don’t worry enough.”

-

A physical copy of the prophecy is given to Lance and Hunk, because they’re glorified messengers who will have to give Takashi Shirogane the prophecy when he gets back from Kerberos.

Something about a suspicion that Shiro is the “son of a king”.

Lance restrains himself from reading it.

-

The Kerberos Mission is a failure. Shiro’s name is dragged through the mud. Keith Kogane is expelled.

Lance picks up the official scroll containing the prophecy, and reads it.

_Follow the call of the lions’ roar,_

_To the skies beyond, five shall soar._

_Paint the skies in shades of red,_

_With the many things still left unsaid._

_Call on colours all so bright_

_Far more so than stars at night,_

_Son of a king will be the first to fall,_

_Leading them all to an ancient call._

_Clipped are wings that once were caught,_

_Still believes not all is fraught._

_Stagnant, patient, stay unyielding,_

_Saving worlds with force of wielding._

_Fight of flame with siren’s song,_

_Millenniums war still raging strong,_

_Flight of two to worry’s end,_

_Are they a villain or are they a friend?_

There are so many things that don’t seem quite right. Why would Luis be worried? There is no remaining war on Earth that has been at least a thousand years long - it’s clear this prophecy must take place in an extremely distant future.

He doesn’t think about it too much.

-

Lance makes his own copy of the prophecy, even as he hands back the official copy to Chiron, reporting the failure the Kerberos Mission and perceived death of the crew members.

It feels important, somehow, that he has a copy of the prophecy, even if it’s unlikely to occur soon.

-

“You smell weird,” Keith Kogane informs him, as they both carry Takashi Shirogane over their shoulders.

“That’s rude,” Lance tells him back, nose pointed to the air proudly. “I smell wonderful.”

-

Turns out, Lance muses, on the wing of the bike belonging to Keith Kogane, with Takashi Shirogane freshly rescued from an alien shipwreck and definitely _not_ dead, Veronica probably hides a lot from him, along with the Garrison.

-

It’s the first bit of uninterrupted time they have; watching Sendak in his containment pod.

Lance looks around, ensuring that no one else seems to be listening in, as he glances back to Shiro. “Hey Shiro?”

“Yes, Lance?” Shiro responds, never taking his eyes off of the pod.

“Do you…” Lance hesitates again, scuffing his foot on the ground, hands clenched in his pockets - one of them clutched tight on his copy of what the people back at Camp are calling the Prophecy of the Lion’s Call. “Did you ever go to a summer camp?”

“Yes.” It’s a bland, slightly distracted answer, and Lance frowns.

“I guess that was too vague,” he muses out loud. “Did you ever go to a summer camp called Camp Half-Blood, son of Jupiter?”

That catches Shiro’s attention - but it a pretty negative way. Maybe Lance could’ve phrased it better because it definitely sounded threatening. Shiro’s head instantly snaps to face him, and he groans, lighting up his Galra hand. “Please don’t tell me you’re a monster here to kill me. I never got to test if my prosthetic works on monsters.”

“What?! No, you’ve got it wrong!” Lance protests immediately, waving his hands desperately. “I’m a legacy, from the McClain family! Definitely not a monster!”

“…Ah,” Shiro concedes, relaxing and deactivating his arm. “The one with three godly ancestors?”

“Yeah!” Lance grins. “And uh, Hunk’s a son of Vulcan, legacy of Athena as well. That’s not the main point of what I wanted to tell you, actually.”

“What is it?” Shiro asks.

“There was a prophecy, not long after you got sent on the Kerberos Mission. A big prophecy. Great Prophecy and Prophecy of the Seven level of big,” Lance says, and watches in slight amusement as Shiro’s eyebrows rise. “And the people back at Camp figured that it might involve you, so they sent me and Hunk with a copy of the prophecy to pass to you when you came back from the mission. Of course, it was reported a failure so we passed it back to Chiron but I made a copy and I really think you should see it.”

He passes the paper in his pocket to Shiro, watches as the eyebrows go higher. “I see.”

“They’re calling it the Prophecy of the Lion’s Call,” Lance adds helpfully, and watches in barely concealed amusement as his eyebrows go _even_ higher. Lance didn’t know eyebrows could go that high.

“Is it..” Shiro asks, slowly. “About us?”

“I think so!” Lance says cheerfully, snapping his fingers and tapping his feet. He pushes a bit of a musical tone into his voice, sways his words more persuasive, and weaves the magic into it. “Hey, I think I should go up. Think about it? And maybe think about telling the others about demigods and legacies, while you’re at it.”

He waves Shiro goodbye, and watches as Shiro slowly waves back, eyes still slightly diluted from the effects of his charmspeak. Lance would feel guilty, he really would, but this secret isn’t just his to drop, even if he thinks it would be good to do so. Hunk is in, for sure, but Shiro’s opinion will be the deciding factor.

And hey, he’s willing to do what need be to ensure his point is communicated across, and if it includes low-key manipulation of his team leader using his powers? Then so be it.

-

“Why is it always us,” Lance complains, lifting his bayard to fire at numerous Galra swarming them. “It’s like they can track us or something.”

Hunk doesn’t answer, desperately firing around them with his more wide-spread targeting bayard form.

“A little help, anyone?” Lance asks through the group comms.

“I’m a little busy too,” Shiro says, quickly, as the noises that his Galra-made arm makes echoes through their comm units.

“I’m heading over,” Keith tells them. “Don’t shoot me. Pidge? Can you hone me in on their locations?”

“On it,” Pidge says, and Lance can hear the beep of the hologram keyboard as Pidge forwards the information to Keith. “Sent.”

“Received,” Keith responds, and heads their way. “It’s kinda weird how you three are always overwhelmed by the Galra,” he comments. “Pidge and I rarely get anyone after us.”

“Huh yeah,” Hunk says, swerving his aim aside so he doesn’t shoot Keith. “Weird.”

“Yeah,” Lance echoes, a thought striking him. “Weird.”

-

He steps into the hangar, both hating and loving the automatic doors. Pity. Lance would’ve liked to kick it open, if only for dramatic effect. “Hey, Hunk?”

“Yeah?” His best friend asks, looking up from the thing he’d been tinkering on.

“We’re being tracked by our demigod scents,” Lance informs him, plopping himself down on the ground next to him.

“Huh?”

“I mean,” he continues. “More like you and Shiro are being tracked by your demigod scents. I’m being tracked by whatever scent legacies have. It makes sense doesn’t it?”

“Huh,” Hunk muses, as the door opens again. “Yeah, it really does.”

“I think the Galra find us by our scents,” Shiro declares, walking towards them.

Lance and Hunk exchange slightly amused looks, and the latter pats the ground next to them. “Welcome to the party.”

“You’re a little late,” Lance feels obligated to add.

-

Shiro calls for a team meeting. It goes about as well as team meetings normally go.

“I have something I need to tell you,” Shiro starts, way too solemnly for an announcement that shouldn’t be that solemn. Maybe it’s a Roman thing?

“Lighten up, no one died,” Lance tells him, then turns to the rest of the team. “ _We_ ,” he says, placing emphasis on the word as he gestures to Hunk, Shiro, along with himself. He also gives a none too subtle look at Shiro, who offers only a sheepish, apologetic smile at the emphasis.“Have something we need to tell you.”

“Do you think the Mist works up here?” Hunk muses. “How are we gonna prove anything if the Mist ruins it?”

“I can manipulate the Mist!” Shiro offers eagerly, quickly getting over his embarrassment. “It’s a magical aspect of air, and well, you should know-“

“No we don’t know,” Keith deadpans.

“Is anyone going to start the explanation from the beginning?” Pidge asks, impatiently. “Some of us have better things to do than watch you guys talk in circles.”

Lance turns, looks her in the eyes, and says: “We’re not human.”

“We are,” Hunk cuts in. “Half-human. We’re half-human, half-god.”

“ _I’m_ half-human half-god,” Shiro corrects. “Hunk is a little more god than human. Lance is…”

“Very little god,” he says, because he knows it. It’s been thrown in his face at Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood, with backhanded compliments like “For a legacy, you are surprisingly powerful.” and the occasional Ares/Mars-kid outburst with “I can’t believe I lost to a legacy!” or even from other legacies - albeit those with less diluted bloodlines - with “Hey look, the ichor-washed is here!” It’s friendly, and that’s what hurts the most.

“I’m 9 out of 16,” Hunk informs them, running the calculations quickly. “Lance is like… 5 out of 128.”

“Whoa, really?” Lance asks. “That’s more than I thought.”

“Part-god?” Keith questions. “What?”

“Uh,” Shiro says, intelligently, exchanging looks with the other two demigods/legacies. “The Roman gods are real.”

“And the Greek ones too!” Lance adds - because he will not stand for erasure, intentional or not. “And if the rumours are right, so are the Norse ones and Egyptian ones and-“

“How about…” Hunk interrupts. “We just start with the greco-roman pantheon?”

-

Pidge and Keith the news surprisingly well, even if it does take Shiro literally flying into the air to convince them. Turns out, there is no Mist in space.

Of course, once that’s over, Pidge heckles him and Hunk for a demonstration of their powers. She is quickly satisfied with Hunk after he fixes one of her broken machines just by placing a hand and talking to it. She is far less satisfied by Lance’s own abilities until he “convinces”/charmspeaks her into letting him handle her computer. He nearly gets murdered for that, but she asked for it!

Uhh, she did demand more experiments - much to the fear/exasperation/amusement of the godlings.

Surprisingly, Keith isn’t too shocked by this turn of events. Something about him being able to sense the difference between them and other humans - which is weird, Lance finds, but who is he to judge, what with all of them flying giant, robotic, magic, space Lions?

Allura and Coran aren’t surprised - by the fact that they aren’t completely human and by the fact that the Galra are probably tracking them through their demigodly scent or the prophecy. Apparently, this was common back on Altea. Of course. So, maybe Earth and Altea aren’t as different as they were first made out to be.

-

The prophecy, even after months in space, remains a mystery.

It’s not their fault! It’s just so incredibly vague!

Fine, maybe it isn’t that vague.

The first two lines are clearly about the Voltron Lions and how they’re far far away from Earth’s atmosphere now. The next two lines are far more vague, but may be about the secret the godlings were keeping? Lance can’t be sure. He was never very good at prophecy reading, not like Luis.

The first two lines of the second stanza? Seems to be more about Voltron, which Lance thinks is kind of a bit much. How many times are they going to emphasise it? After that, the two lines are about Shiro. Clearly. Because he was the first to get shot out into deep space, past their galaxy.

Third stanza, first two lines are probably some play on Pidge’s nickname/name/who even knows? By that pattern, the last two lines of that stanza probably refer to Hunk, though Lance is curious about how he “saves worlds with force of wielding”.

The final stanza is where things get weird. The first line can be broken into two parts. “Fight of flame” probably refers to Red, or Keith, because the Red Lion is the guardian of the element of fire or something else like that. The next half “With siren’s song” implies, more straightforwardly, that they’ll come into to contact with a siren, or someone else with a siren’s ability of compelling through singing. Or, as Hunk suggests, much to Lance’s frustration and the rest of the team’s amusement, it could simply mean Lance.

Next line is clearly about the unresolved ten thousand year war, which makes sense in retrospect. The third line is… Two of them will fly somewhere and resolve their worries. The last line implies that along that way, they’ll find someone, but their allegiance is uncertain. Or that they can influence their allegiance.

Prophecies.

“Lance,” Pidge whines.

“Hm.”

“Laance.”

“What, Pidge?” He asks, slightly annoyed.

“Stop pouring over the prophecy,” she tells him. “Didn’t you guys say that those are intentionally vague and often have double-meanings and all that other fun cryptic stuff?”

“Well, yeah,” Lance agrees. “But I’m a legacy of Apollo. This is supposed to be my thing, you know? And if I can figure out what it means, then we’ll have an advantage of sorts! We’ll know what to expect!”

“Stop worrying about the future,” she chides. “Focus on the now. C’mon, I want to see if I can apply Green’s cloaking technology to Blue!”

**Author's Note:**

> This ends somewhere before they get wrecked end-Season 1. The prophecy (which is so badly written ahhhhhhhhh) stretches over Season 2 for most part. Last line can refer to a whole bunch of things. Allura dealing with Keith? The Blades as a whole? Lotor? Clone Shiro? Yes. 
> 
> Don't mind me while I die from cringe.


End file.
